Category: General

Recently, we have implemented a new recycling system at Marimurtra, at the various points for rubbish and litter disposal within the Garden.
This will help us all, and especially our visitors to contribute to the overall environment, enabling the waste they generate to be properly recycled.

Increase the number of visitors in 1,054 people compared to 2017, the year that recorded the best data since 2003

The Marimurtra Botanical Garden, in Blanes, has received a total of 123,068 people in 2018. Of these visitors, 115,969 visited the Garden, 1,421 came to perform some events (wedding, company event, etc.), 4,788 are school public and the remaining 890 came to the concerts of Les Nits de Marimurtra.

These data show a positive stability in the influx of annual visitors to the Garden. Of all the months of the year, the busiest one has been in August, with 22,516 visitors, which represents 18% of the total annual public. And the month with the lowest influx was in January, with 934 visitors. However, slight seasonality is seen in the second quarter, from March to June, while falling in the fourth quarter, from September to October.

The most prominent visitor group that Marimurtra has received in 2018 remains the public of French origin, which goes from 21% (2017) to 25% of the total public; followed by Catalan that this year drops from 21% (2017) to 20%. The rest of European audiences that have been increased have been mainly those of Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom, but the public of Russia, Holland, Belgium and the one of the rest of the Spanish State decrease.

The visit to the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, one of the only two in Catalonia and the only one on the Costa Brava, continues to present very high seasonal data. For this reason, one of the main objectives of the Carl Faust Foundation will continue to be to work to seasonalize the tourist activity of visiting the Garden, as well as keeping the number of annual visitors stable. In this regard, the Carl Faust Foundation continues to prepare a series of actions to make the visit more attractive during the months that fall outside the high season and keep the calendar of activities in Marimurtra active throughout the year.

The Carl Faust Foundation, owner and manager of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, values ​​these figures very positively in a context of recovery of tourism in Catalonia and the Costa Brava in particular. Also in the revitalization of an interest in the most iconic and significant places in our house, among which Marimurtra stands out, a playful and cultural proposal with a great botanical and scenic interest.

The Carl Faust Foundation is a private non-profit foundation that received the Cross of Sant Jordi of the Generalitat de Catalunya in 2009. The Marimurtra Botanical Garden is classified as a Cultural Good of National Interest by the Generalitat of Catalonia.

The spirit of autumn has flowed over Marimurtra with earthy colors, oranges and reds. Some species stand out over the rest in this season of the year.

A botanical garden is a living museum, which is transformed with each season, with autumn being one of the most special. The transformation of a species is part of its life cycle, and seeing the process of changing through the seasons is an enriching experience ; highly recommended! Below we present some of the most outstanding species from this autumn.

Cycas revoluta is a very majestic coniferous species. Did you know that cycads are one of the most ancient groups of plants on Earth? They existed with the dinosaurs. Within this female cone, the seeds of the plant are hidden. Beware the leaves, they are very sharp – discouraging even for a hungry dinosaur.

Myrtle (Myrtus communis) and strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) are splendid with their fruits. In Marimurtra, seeing the fruits of these two species is a clear symbol that Autumn has arrived. Both fruits are edible, but beware of strawberry tree ones, they say that if you eat too many you can get drunk!
Did you know that Marimurtra took its name from the Myrtle?

One of the most prominent blooms of this month is Protea neriifolia, noted for the hairs it has on the ends of its petals. This wonderful flower is used to complement bridal bouquets, as it adds a lot of personality.

Finally, autumn is the beginning time in which many species of palm trees bear fruit. If walking through Marimurtra, you smell a very sweet aroma, most likely it will be wafting from piles of fruits that have fallen from the palms.
Those are some of different flavors and colors, awaiting your visit to the Autumn Garden.

We don’t know when Carl Faust, the founder of Marimurtra, visited Blanes for the first time. It’s likely that it was in the middle of the first decade of the last century. He was in his thirties then, and used to take group trips to different corners of this land, usually to high mountain areas, but also along the wild Costa Brava, that dazzled and captivated him. In a letter written in 1947 he told his friend Josep Cuatrecasas, “what people see now, I already saw on my first visit“. And that was how, in 1918, at a time when business was going very well and he was beginning to think about what his future would be like, he decided to buy an initial piece of land from which the botanical garden would eventually be born.

On January 14, and before the notary Joan Coma y Cirés, he bought, for 150 pesetas, a “piece of vineyard land, in part, of third class, and uncultivated part, located in this municipal area and called San Francisco, of space, a little more or less twenty-four areas eighty and one centiareas. It is bordered to the North by the road that leads from this town to San Francisco, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, to the East by JoséVieta and to the west by Mariano Verdaguer“. This was an old vineyard that, probably due to the phylloxera plague that had ravaged Catalonia twenty-five or thirty years previously, had been left unproductive and was now partially barren.

Perhaps barren from a viticultural perspective, the place was however quite special: a space of rock and sand inclined towards the sea, with a moderate thermal variability, protected from the north winds, with low salinity and a high relative humidity. Such characteristics that “I would share with the other farms that, from the following year, I would acquire and so form the totality of the current garden, and that would make Marimurtra the ideal place to grow plants that, until then, had not been obtainable in any part of Europe”.

The word Bokashi is Japanese, meaning fermented organic matter. It’s a type of fertilizer produced by aerobic fermentation of organic materials, via heat generated during decomposition.

Josep Sauleda presented this innovative method of preparing fertilizer by Jairo Restrepo to the last meeting of ‘Bad Gardeners of Marimurtra’, and with his help, we have applied it to the Gardens.
This biological fertilizer promotes self-sufficiency through the use of what nature itself provides, without requiring any chemical additives. In this way, a natural, ecological and sustainable fertilizer is ensured that enriches the soil biologically, transforming it from an inert substrate to a fertile, living soil.

In order to produce the Bokashi for Marimurtra, the following ingredients have been used: heather remains and rice husk flour as carbon sources; chicken manure from our resident flock of Catalan heritage chickens, cow dung; and ordinary garden soil, clay and rock meal.
Water with beet-sugar molasses is added until a homogeneous mixture results. Then it is covered with a tarpaulin and allowed to ferment. Since it is an aerobic process it must be stirred often to keep it oxygenated.
The fermentation is relatively rapid, taking between 15 and 20 days. It’s a fast-performing fertilizer that provides a large quantity of microorganisms to the soil.

The recent exchange with Javier Garcia Púa has offered Marimurtra the opportunity to acquire a very valuable specimen for the garden’s collection of cycads. A hybrid of the palms Jubaea chilensis and Butia odorata was exchanged for the cycad Encephalartos lebomboensis, a native of South Africa like most cycads. This species is in danger of extinction and is at risk of disappearing in its wild state.

Two specimens of Dioon merolae and one Macrozamia mountperriensis were also purchased. With the help of cycad specialist Simon Lavaud, these specimens have been planted in different strategic areas of the Garden.

Dioon merolae is also in danger of extinction. While the two new specimens are relatively young, specimens more than 500 years old have been found. You can determine their age by the length of the trunk, or stem. To know the sex of the plant, you must await its cone-shaped inflorescence. Males and females look different.

These species add value to the collection of cycads, which continues to increase in variety and number of species, with the aim of guaranteeing the survival of this genus, as many cycad species are in danger of extinction. The collection at Marimurtra is fast becoming one of the most important collections of cycad in Europe, with acquisition of new species included in the garden’s budget.

As always at Marimurtra, we work to ensure sustainability of the environment. Recently, an innovative system created by IoTrees, has been implemented to detect Red Palm Weevils (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) which attack our palm trees. The new system consists of seismic sensors that are placed in the palm and detect the sounds weevils make as they chew their way towards the growing point or ‘heart’ of the palm. (Unlike other plants, palms have only one growing point, and if that is destroyed the palm cannot re-grow, and it dies).

This small insect is the culprit behind the deaths of thousands of palm trees every year in our country, and milions worldwide. The weevil has become a real plague that affects a large number of Communities in Spain, especially those located in coastal areas, and its pace of expansion has been unstoppable, and seemingly as well, the damage caused to the palm trees. The larva is the life stage that really causes the greatest damage to the palm trees. After hatching, they feed on the soft inner tissues and new growth of the tree, and it is at this moment that death begins for the palm.
In the Marimurtra Botanical Garden, a total of 4 palm trees have died due to this insect and, in order to avoid future attacks, an innovative and environmentally friendly system has been sought to help identify sufficiently in advance the specimens that suffer from this plague.

The sensors have incorporated a system that detects seismic movements. When they detect a match for a sound wave pattern coinciding with the sound of a weevil biting the palm stipule, it sends a signal to a mobile device, warning that that palm is being attacked. It is able to detect a larva of only 1 cm in length, which allows a very early detection of the attack to guarantee the survival of the specimen.

A seismic sensor is placed in the stipule of the palm tree. In this way, it is able to detect all movements that occur in the palm tree. Its system of detection of the weevils is very effective and innovative, since it excludes the natural movements produced by the wind or the rain, but zeroes in on the movement and the vibration of the weevils chewing the palm.

In this way, the death of any specimen can be prevented by early detection. Once detected, we provide a treatment with plant extracts to eradicate the pest before it is too late. In Marimurtra, no chemicals are used and the treatment is done with Neem (Azadirachta indica) vegetable oil.

Drossanthemum floribundum carpets the stone blocks bordering Marimurtra’s ‘Steps of Epicurus’ with a waterfall of pink.

The 81 Steps of Epicurus are one of the most significant constructions of Marimurtra, structured in 9 different levels of 9 steps each, the stairway is famed for tits majesty, for the stunning views provided, and for the color offered by the Drosanthemum during Spring. Due to its visual delight, Epicurus’ Steps during full flower has become one of the most representative images of the botanical garden on the Costa Brava.
Also known by the common name ‘Midday Flower’ or Queen’s Hair, this is a classic species because of the multitude of pink flowers it provides during its ephemeral flowering. Native to South Africa, and thus well adapted to wet winters and dry summers, it is commonly used in Meditarranean gardening as a living carpet. Drosanthemum’s leaves are covered with water cells and this makes them glisten as if dew-covered or freshly watered, the flowers are a pale pink color and unfortunately its flowering lasts approximately 3 weeks, between March and June. In addition, they are a great source of pollen collection by the pollinating bees of the Garden.

They are given the common name of ‘Midday Flower’, since they require a lot of sunlight to open up. Therefore, sunny days are ideal to enjoy this species, and especially when the sun is in its most perpendicular to the Earth, at noon. On cloudy and rainy days its flowers remain closed. The genus name Drosanthemum is derived from the Greek for dew, drosos, and flower, anthos, referring to the glittering appearance of many species. Their abundant flowering inspired another common name, ‘Queen’s Hair’, while the scientific name ‘floribundum’ is from the Latin for “many flowered”.

In addition to their botanical content interest, the Epicurus’ Steps mark the promise of love between two people. In the Marimurtra Botanical Garden weddings are held, and the spectacular descent of the bride takes place on these majestic stairs. It is a unique moment and the beginning of the path to the exclusive ceremony at the Temple of Linnaeus.